Major limb amputations in Seremban Hospital: a review of 204 cases from 1997-1999

We conducted a retrospective study of 3 years duration beginning from the 1st January 1997 to the 31st December 1999 in order to identify the epidemiology of major limb amputations in Seremban Hospital. Two hundred and four patients were included in this study out of which 65.7% were male and 34.3% were female. The mean age of the amputees was 39.7 years old. Non traumatic amputations constitute 85.8% of the cases mainly due to diabetic ulcers or gangrene (91%) followed by peripheral vascular disease (7%) and malignancy (2%). Traumatic amputations represent 14.2% of the cases with road-traffic accident as the major cause (82.8%) followed by industrial accident (17.2%). Lower limb amputations were performed in 97.5% of the cases with below knee amputations as the commonest procedure (72%), followed by above knee amputations (27%) and Syme amputations (1%). Five patients had upper limb amputations done. Four of them were below elbow amputations while one had forequarter amputation done of the left shoulder. Of note, there were increasing number of amputations done over the last three years with alarming increasing trends of traumatic amputation. The three main risk factors for major limb amputations are diabetes mellitus, male gender and road traffic accident.